A youngster of about ten cut loose from the traffic and fell in beside me. A tied bundle of fresh herbs and leaves bounced on the rump of his… her?… saggy, tired horse. “You look like you lost something, mister. Need a hand?”
I really couldn’t tell if this was a boy or girl. I nodded at the plants and asked, “You pick those or buy them in town?”
“Oh, I picked them. That’s my job. Mama does the selling.”
“Then I reckon you know these woods pretty well, don’t you?”
“I know them on that side of the road like I do my own fingernails. Daddy won’t let me cross the road into the Black River Hills, though. Says all the herbs and plants we need grow just fine on this side. Too many weird things happen over there.”
Naturally, the side she/he couldn’t visit was the side Laura had emerged from. “Weird how?”
She/he shook his/her head. Little wooden bug-shooing beads braided into his/her hair slapped her/his shoulders. “He won’t say. Just that lots of people go in there and don’t come out. And there’s people who live in there who’re…” His/her shoulders shivered. “Weird.”
I nodded. “That’s the word of the day. Tell me, did you ever see anybody with dragons on their boots poking around out here?”
“Dragons?”
“Yeah. Silver design on the back of the heel, maybe.”
Again the beads slapped his/her shoulders. “Sorry. Guess I’m not much help after all. Want to buy some foxglove? Can’t get any fresher unless you pick it yourself.”
“No thanks, er… you.”
She/he grinned mischievously. “You can’t tell if I’m a boy or a girl, can you?”
“No,” I said.
He/she laughed, nudged the horse and rejoined the traffic on the road. I shook my head and turned my attention back to the side of the road where the weird things were.
Suddenly I yanked the reins tight. The horse snorted and tossed her head in protest. I knew this was the spot. I saw no tangible trace, but the sun shone through the trees at the same angle as the moonlight that night and made identical shadow patterns. And there, behind the trunk of a huge oak tree that hid it from the road, was a trail wide enough for a rider. A mostly naked girl on foot could’ve used it easily.
It didn’t mean it was the same trail, but it was a start. The way she’d been scratched up, she could’ve just bolted through the untracked forest. But it was all I had.
I took the path down the incline. It followed a natural route through the trees, but maintained essentially a southern direction. According to my knowledge of the Muscodian countryside, this would lead me into the Black River Hills, so called because of the narrow, unusually deep waterway that bisected them before joining up with the Gusay. In addition to spooky stories and tales of weirdness, these hills were perforated with caves, old mines and sundry other hiding places where someone could torture a girl in peace. But we’d been taken someplace with a wooden floor, so I sought an actual dwelling, not a hole in the rock.
I reached a fork in the trail. I paused and studied it. I had nothing at all on which to base a decision, so I pulled a coin from my pocket, flipped it and chose the path to the left. As I nudged the horse forward I glanced up and saw, to the right, a thin trail of smoke rising into the sky. Where there was a chimney there was a house. I considered tossing the duplicitous coin off into the undergrowth, but money, even deceitful money, was too scarce right now. I pocketed it and turned down the right-hand path.
I emerged at the top of a steep but not very tall rise that looked over a tiny clearing. Below stood a small, ramshackle house. Goats milled about in a pen, and a huge pile of firewood lay stacked beside a two-wheeled cart. A scrawny garden provided meager produce. A pair of small children ran around yelling in the front yard, and their high-pitched shrieks made my horse snort in annoyance.
I looked again at the big pile of wood, and the cart beside it. Laura had called the people who provided her stolen jacket “farmers.” But it had been dark, she was in a hurry and it would be hard to farm in the middle of the forest. Might they have been woodcutters?
I headed down the slope. The two children, both under age five, froze when they saw me. Their clothes were a handmade mix of milled cloth and animal skin, and their hair was cut short. As with the herb collector, I couldn’t say for sure whether they were boys, girls or one of each. Kids these days.
“Hi,” I said. “Is your mom or dad around?”
“You don’t know my daddy,” the smaller one said.
“You’re right,” I agreed. “But I’d still like to talk to him.”
“Are you from the government?” the other asked, in a higher voice that implied femininity. She had a hard time with the last word, and pronounced each syllable distinctly, as if well practiced.
“Me? Nah.” I dismounted and crouched so we could talk at her eye level. “I live over in Neceda.”
“Daddy says King Ar-chee-bald will try to take everything away from us,” the little girl said.
I looked around at the shack they called home, the goats they used for dinner and milk and the wood they sold to get everything else. “I really wouldn’t worry about it,” I said.
“Well, I would,” a woman’s voice replied. It was deep and firm. “Now step away from my children.”
A stout, broad-shouldered woman in a threadbare dress stood in the doorway holding a spear ready over one shoulder. It was the short kind used to hunt wild boar, and her bare feet were spread in a practiced throwing stance. I said, “Hi. I think we’ve got a misunderstanding in progress here.”
“I’ll skewer you if you breathe wrong. Misunderstand that?”
I raised my hands. “No, ma’am. I’d just like to ask you if you’d seen a friend of mine, though.”
Her eyes narrowed in her weathered face. A strand of limp hair hung between her eyes. “What friend?”
“A girl named Laura. Would’ve been about ten days ago.”
“I don’t know any girl named Laura.”
“Do you know anyone who wears boots with dragons on them?”
Her brow creased with thought, and with her free hand she tugged at her uneven neckline as if it had suddenly grown tight. Then she motioned me forward. I was very cautious and stopped well out of arm’s reach. The spear stayed aimed at the center of my chest, but she held it wrong for such a close jab and I was pretty sure I could dodge it if I had to. Then again, I might end up on a spit over their dinner fire. “You know about the dragon people?” she asked.
I nodded. “Ran into three of them out on the road a while back.”
She looked me over carefully. “You’re not one, are you?”
“No, ma’am, not me.”
“Good. You wouldn’t walk out of this yard alive if you were.” She looked past me at the kids. “Go play!” she snapped, and they scurried off into the woods like upright squirrels. She returned her attention to me. “You swear you’re not one of them?”
“Do I look like one of them?”
“They’re sneaky. How do you feel about King Archibald?”
I raised my chin and put on my most sincere face. “I’ll leave Muscodia before I’ll submit to his tyranny,” I said, adding equal parts outrage, courage and the fear that comes from espousing a lost cause. And technically my words were true. Of course, since I wasn’t a citizen I felt no patriotic loyalty, and from what I’d heard King Archibald was far too disconnected and flighty to ever do well as a tyrant.
She didn’t answer for a long, tense moment. I crossed my arms, which put my sword hand close enough to the hilt that I could draw it quickly if needed. Women, I knew, could be just as vicious as men, and if she attacked me I had no compunction about defending myself.
Finally she said, “My husband will be home soon. He’s the one you should talk to. Come on inside and wait for him, why don’t you?”
I nodded at the spear. “You going to keep pointing that at me?”